


and the sky burned with the Reapers' lights

by captainhurricane



Series: life and the universe (as we know it) [3]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-27
Updated: 2013-08-27
Packaged: 2017-12-24 20:30:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/944326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainhurricane/pseuds/captainhurricane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>kindness heals, violence destroys. a small look at a relationship from its beginning to its inevitable ending. Post-Control-ish at the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and the sky burned with the Reapers' lights

**Author's Note:**

> once again, the Shepard here is mine: my first one. He was a Paragon through and through (with some Renegade thrown in because some people need a punch to the face) with Jack as his romance and Control as his choice.

When it comes down to it, Jack is at a loss when she first realizes she's in love. When you spend every minute of your life fighting for your survival and thinking everyone out there is an enemy, there is no room for such feelings as love- what is love to a prisoner and a human so deeply carved with pain that nothing else matters? So, when Jack is rescued from a prison ship (or more like dragged, she rescued herself, thanks) and face to face with him, she is at a loss. Under her anger at the world that tried to make her bend and break is the person she was always supposed to be and this man, this Commander Shepard of the Alliance (he grins like a boy but his blue eyes are pure steel) is dragging it out. 

She realizes she's in love after the Praegia-facility is blown apart and he looks at her. Just looks. No smile, no reassuring, comforting words. Just a look and that's enough. Jack is angered by the warmth he evokes at first and fears losing herself because this has never happened before; never has she felt like the universe wasn't such a lonely place after all, never before has she felt so-   
"Jack," he says, his voice a warm rumble.   
"It's okay."   
\- at home. The Normandy purrs around them, the end of everything looms in sight and she cries for the first time since she was a child and a prisoner and barely taller than a man's knee. He does nothing but hold her, only once does he say those two damned words. It's okay. She punches him in the chest but he doesn't back away. And she doesn't want to. Her love burns, Jack aches. Damn you, she says in answer and leans to kiss him so as to not see the gaze that sees through her or hear more of that voice because really, Commander Shepard doesn't know of the darkness of the human heart, doesn't know shit because what's he done that's so like to what she's done, what's she's gone through? Why isn't he cynical and angry, why is he smiling yet again and offering second chances on a silver platter when she is tired and angry.

She loves him for that; she loves him because who gives a damn, who knows, she's never been in love before and it hurts worse than anything. It still hurts when she is older and tells herself she is wiser and yet here he is, new companions by his side, shoulders more hunched like holding the entire weight of the world on his broad shoulders. She kisses him because that's all she can do and calls him names because how could she tell him that I love you is what she wants to say in front of these people, these kids that look up to her, these companions of his that she doesn't know. Shepard has always had a knack for it- for all his good intentions, he can draw out the worst in people (and the best, never forget the best because Jack still dreams of the dark buzz of the Collector base and the adrenaline pumping through all of their veins) and Jack finds that her worst is uncertainty. 

The universe has a way of drawing the worst out of everything and breaks apart for that. 

She never sees Shepard again after talking with him in the London area, his hologram a mere shade of the real man. She wishes she could say more but instead she tells him to take her dancing when they're done. He laughs; short and tired and beautiful. Jack chokes. She never sees him again.

But she feels him. In the steady hum of the Reapers hanging in the sky, in her dreams and in the blue brightness of the evening sky. Jack, Jack, Jack, the wind whispers. Jack wonders if the ache in her will ever go away. Jack, rumble those dead gods, their corpses still littered all over the galaxy, their living ones, now with blue lights still hanging in the sky. Jack wonders if it's him. If he's watching her. Boy Scout, that's creepy, she says to the sky and thinks she can hear a laugh.


End file.
